The Thing I've Never Said, and Why Self-Reliance Changed Everything

Financial self-reliance isn't about not needing anyone. It's about knowing that if you had to, you could. 

In the Season 1 finale, Holly gets into the many faces of financial dependence, the difference between security and self-reliance, and shares something she has never talked about publicly before. 

This is the thread that has been running through every conversation this season, and in this episode, she pulls it all the way through. 

Self-reliance starts with looking. Here's where to start... 

Next steps:

Download the free guide: 3 Easy Steps To Look At Your Money (Even When You'd Rather Not).
hollywalliscoaching.thrivecart.com/look-at-your-money/

Stop reacting and start leading your money. Book a free Money Clarity Call:
hollywalliscoaching.com/get-started/ 

Join my list: http://eepurl.com/iOssr6

Additional Resources:

Bank of America study: 94% of women believe they'll be responsible for their own finances. Only 28% feel ready to act.
https://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/content/newsroom/press-releases/2022/06/bank-of-america-study-finds-94--of-women-believe-they-ll-be-pers.html 

A woman's confidence in her own financial ability matters more than financial knowledge alone.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016748701500094X 

Transcript

The Quiet Fear Behind Success

Holly 0:00

If something changed tomorrow, if the job went away, if the relationship ended, if something happened that you didn't see coming, a lot of women are not sure they'd be okay. Financially okay. They're not sure they'd know what to do, where the money is, or how to keep things running. They're managing a full life by every measure. And in the back of their mind, they're thinking, I'm not sure I could do this on my own. That's financial dependence, and it's the most important conversation I think we can have about money. You're listening to Your Money, Your Move. I'm Holly Wallis, Personal Finance and Profitability Coach, and I work with high-achieving women who earn well and want to feel that same confidence with their money. This is the season one finale. And whether you've been here since the beginning or you just found the show, I'm glad you're here for this one. Every conversation we've had this season has been about financial dependence in some way, even when I wasn't saying it directly. We avoid looking at our money because we don't know if we can handle what we find, or because we've always let someone else deal with it, even if that's technology. We get blindsided by unexpected expenses because we don't have a plan that keeps us in control, and our peace of mind depends completely on everything staying the same and being taken care of. And money conversations feel so hard because we aren't the ones initiating them. Every one of those is some form of financial dependence. Today I'm going to share something I've never talked about publicly before. It's part of a bigger conversation about the many ways financial dependence shows up in life and what it takes to get free of it. Financial dependence is one of those things that people often picture in one specific way. They see a woman who doesn't work, who relies entirely on someone else to pay the bills and has no income of her own. And yep, that's one example of it. And if we only see it that one way, we can easily think, well, that's not me. But financial dependence can look a lot of different ways. And most of them don't look anything like that. It looks like staying in a job that's draining you because you can't imagine how you'd replace the paycheck. Those golden handcuffs are strong. The salary and benefits are good, and your whole life depends on what the job gives you. So you stay. Even when you know you want something different, because your financial picture only works with that specific income and you've never actually figured out what it would take to leave. That's dependence on a job. It also looks like letting your partner manage the money because they're better with numbers, or because the conversation about finances has always been uncomfortable and it's just easier to let someone else take care of it. And then one day you realize you're not even sure what accounts you have or what the monthly expenses actually add up to, or what would happen if you suddenly had to figure out all of it by yourself. That's dependence on another person. And here's one that I think is the most common and the least recognized. It's not knowing what to do with your money. So you just don't. You defer and avoid. You estimate instead of knowing, and you hope the number in the account is enough instead of checking it. You let someone else, like a partner, a financial advisor, maybe a parent, tell you what the right move is because you don't trust yourself to figure it out. It looks like staying in a situation, any situation, because you have to, or because you're afraid to lose a support that keeps things afloat, or because someone or something helps out financially and you're not sure what would happen if that stopped. All of these are financial dependents, and they all feel the same. It feels like being stuck where you are, like life is happening to you, and you're just responding to it. It's claustrophobic, like running but never actually getting anywhere, or like you're a child who isn't in charge of her own life. And at any minute, someone could decide to change the rules on you, and you just have to deal with it. That's why it's so hard for high-achieving women. You're the person who handles things at work, at home, and in every other area of your life. Then you sit down to deal with your own money and you feel like a completely different person. As women, we feel the contradiction of being in charge of everything except this. And that's what keeps us from ever talking about it. The usual advice we get is never depend on a man or a partner or anyone. I understand the instinct behind that advice because we were raised by a generation of women who fought tooth and nail for their independence. But that framing does us a disservice because it turns self-reliance into isolation. It makes it sound like the goal is not to need anyone, to handle everything by yourself, and never let anyone else in. Definitely never ask for help. Financial reliance means something very specific to me. It means if I had to, I could. If everything changed tomorrow, I'd be okay because I planned for it, because I know what I have, I know what I need, and I trust myself to figure out what comes next. And that's true whether you're single or married, whether you share your finances with a partner or manage them alone, whether you earn a lot or a little. Or, and this is the part nobody talks about, if someday they need you to take care of them, if what you thought was your security isn't. I know this because it happened to me twice. I grew up with three rules: work hard, take care of yourself, and always have a plan. My parents drilled that into me because they knew life changes without warning, and they wanted to make sure I would know I was going to be okay no matter what happened. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what that really means. And here's what I figured out. Sometimes self-reliance with money disappears in a second. That happened to me. But for most women, it doesn't get lost in one big event. It's given away one small decision at a time. Every you handle it, or I'll look at it later. It slipped away in that conversation where you just didn't say anything because someone else sounded more sure in their opinion than you. And the first thing you lose is your voice. You stop having opinions about your own money because you don't feel qualified to have one. And you go along with decisions other people tell you to make because they seem more confident. And the only alternative feels like admitting you don't know what you're looking at. And it's so uncomfortable that avoiding it starts to seem like the safer option, which makes everything worse because the less you look, the less you trust yourself. And the less you trust yourself, the less you look. That's the cycle of financial dependence. And most women don't recognize they're in it because they're still earning a solid paycheck. And it doesn't look like what we think dependence would look like. That is what I want every woman listening to hear. Because I think it's the most misunderstood part of all of this. You don't break out of financial dependence by earning more, saving more, or finding a better app to track your spending. You break out of it by knowing what you have, where it goes, and what's left. Those are facts you can trust. And that trust is self-reliance. And there's a big difference between financial security and financial self-reliance that I think most people miss. Security is a number in an account. Self-reliance is the confidence that you can make your next decision with whatever number is in there. Someone can take your security from you: a job, medical insurance, a stable economy, or a marriage you thought would last. Nobody can take self-reliance from you because it's part of what you know and what you trust about yourself. I've had my security taken from me twice, but my self-reliance held both times. And the second time really tested it. It was in 2023. I was 48 years old and I had a stroke. I was in the middle of teaching a live course on Zoom, and mid-sentence, my vision disappeared. Just gone. I kept going because that's what I would do. And I just didn't want to scare anyone. The course was almost over, so I took a deep breath, and slowly over the next few minutes, my vision started to come back, along with a crippling headache. I made it to the end, got off the call, and went straight to the hospital. The next day, the results of my brain scan came back, and they also found multiple sclerosis. I have said for years that when life gives you lemons, make money. And that day in that hospital room, I found out that I really meant it. At the time of the stroke, I was in the middle of building three businesses. Two were growing fast, and the third was just starting to gain momentum. After the diagnosis, one of the clearest thoughts I had was about my money. To some of you, that might sound like a really weird first reaction, but I had already worked way too hard to rebuild my financial self-reliance to let it be taken away from me again. So the first thing I did was figure out exactly what I would need financially to take care of my health for the rest of my life, because this was not going away this time. What do I need to have in place? What if I can't work at some point? What does my financial life need to look like so that I have what I need for as long as I need it on my terms? I was surprisingly calm in that hospital room because I knew my money. I knew what I had, what I needed, and I knew I could work through what came next. When everything changed, the self-reliance held because I'd done the work when nothing was on fire, and I had planned for when it would be, because I knew it would. And you should never need a crisis to decide to build this for yourself. So let me talk about what financial self-reliance actually looks like in regular life when nothing dramatic is happening, because hopefully that's how it will apply most for you. Self-reliance is feeling like, I planned it this way on purpose. It's when an unexpected bill comes in and your first thought is, let me look at what I have. And you already have a pretty good idea before you even have to check. And it's when your partner brings up a big financial decision and you can sit in that conversation knowing your own numbers with your own perspective and say what you actually think. It's also when you open your bank account on a Tuesday morning and it just looks like information. Just numbers, no big deal. Self-reliance with money is really about one thing: trusting yourself. Trusting that you can handle whatever comes, that you have your own best interest in mind better than anyone else, and that there's always a way through, even when the road to get there is hard. That trust is what makes every good financial decision possible, and it lets you plan. It allows you to have that difficult money conversation with your partner or your family because you trust your own voice in the room. And when that trust isn't there, you avoid. And you defer to someone else because you don't think you can trust your own judgment. I want to come back to something I said earlier because I think it might be the most important thing I'll say in this episode. We need to let people in. We need support and we need partnership. Self-reliance is about making sure that if someone who is there for you isn't there tomorrow for whatever reason, you know what to do. You know what you have and you trust yourself with a decision. And the other most important thing I'll say is this only you know better than anyone what is right for you in your life. Things do change. Jobs go away, relationships end, people get sick, we change our minds. The thing you thought was security can stop being your security on any given Tuesday. And when that happens, the only thing that holds is what you've built for yourself. That's financial self-reliance. And I believe from everything I've lived, it's the most important thing you can do for yourself. So here's what I'd ask you to spend some time thinking about. Where in your financial life are you currently depending on hope that everything will work out? Where are you guesstimating instead of knowing your reality for sure? Where have you been deferring a decision or a conversation or a look at the numbers because some part of you is afraid of what you'll find? Or it's just easier to let someone else do it. What would be different for you if you really knew? That's where it starts. You've been listening to this season, and something has started to click. A recognition, a readiness, a sense that you want your relationship with money to feel different. Here's somewhere to go with that. Everything I've been talking about today starts with one thing: knowing what you have. So I build a free guide around that. It's called Three Easy Steps to Look at Your Money, even when you'd rather not. It gives you a clear practical way to see your financial picture without judgment or fixing anything. And without having to do a big overhaul of your finances. Just looking. That's the starting point for self-reliance with your money. And the link is in the show notes. When you're past that starting point and ready for a structure that holds up in your real life with someone working alongside you, that's the work I do. Six months, just you, me, and your money. I only take on a couple new clients each month because this is one-on-one work and I want you to have my full attention. There's a link in the show notes to book a money clarity call. We talk about what's keeping your financial decisions reactive right now and whether working together is the right next step for you, whenever you're ready. I started this podcast because I believe the women who are working the hardest and managing the most deserve to feel financially self-reliant. However, uncertain money feels right now, that can change. You get to decide when. Season two is coming, and here's what to know about where we're going. We're getting into more real stories where you hear someone describe their experience with money and think, that's my life right now. And we're going into the parts of your financial life that are harder to talk about because they involve other people. The relationships, the conversations, and the money dynamics that play out with your partner and your family in ways that a spreadsheet can't solve. I can't wait to bring that to you. You've been listening to your money, your move. I'm Holly Wallis, Personal Finance and Profitability Coach. Show notes, free resources, and how to work with me are all at HollyWallisCoaching.com. Subscribing keeps these conversations in your feed. And a short rating and review helps other women find them too. Until next season, take care. And remember, this is your money. Your move is always yours to make.